DROPDB(1) PostgreSQL Client Applications DROPDB(1)

NAME dropdb - remove a PostgreSQL database

SYNOPSIS dropdb [ option... ] dbname

DESCRIPTION dropdb destroys an existing PostgreSQL database. The user who executes this command must be a database superuser or the owner of the database.

dropdb is a wrapper around the SQL command DROP DATABASE [drop_database(7)]. There is no effective difference between dropping databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server.

OPTIONS dropdb accepts the following command-line arguments:

dbname Specifies the name of the database to be removed.

-e

--echo Echo the commands that dropdb generates and sends to the server.

-i

--interactive Issues a verification prompt before doing anything destructive.

dropdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

-h host

--host host Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port

--port port Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file exten- sion on which the server is listening for connections.

-U username

--username username User name to connect as.

-w

--no-password Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

-W

--password Force dropdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since dropdb will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentica- tion. However, dropdb will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

ENVIRONMENT PGHOST

PGPORT

PGUSER Default connection parameters

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the envi- ronment variables supported by libpq (see in the documentation).

DIAGNOSTICS In case of difficulty, see DROP DATABASE [drop_database(7)] and psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connec- tion settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

EXAMPLES To destroy the database demo on the default database server:

$ dropdb demo

To destroy the database demo using the server on host eden, port 5000, with verification and a peek at the underlying command:

$ dropdb -p 5000 -h eden -i -e demo Database "demo" will be permanently deleted. Are you sure? (y/n) y DROP DATABASE demo;

SEE ALSO createdb(1), DROP DATABASE [drop_database(7)]

Application 2014-02-17 DROPDB(1)